


The Writing on the Walls

by Leonawriter



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's
Genre: Background Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-28
Updated: 2013-10-05
Packaged: 2017-12-27 21:39:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/983911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of ficlets where the Signers grew up inside the Walls of the Shingeki no Kyojin world.  The first warning of the Dark Signers that they'd ever had was the writing on the walls.  A sign, as it were, of things to come.  Then came what would become known as the Black Titans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Shinigami of Shiganshina

They called him the ‘Shinigami of Shiganshina’.  Because that was where he was from, regardless of wherever he might choose to return to.

Because he’d fought off death so many times, there were starting to be whispers that death itself was afraid to claim him, who had emerged from one of the, as the populace had deemed to call them, ‘Black Titans’.

He’d hardly say a word, to anyone, not even his own commanding officers, unless he had to.  He’d simply stare ahead as though he wasn’t even seeing anyone there, the only sign that they’d been acknowledged being a possible tilt of the head, a shake or nod.

And on the field, in battle… his movements were precise, effective, economic, and deadly.  Titan after Titan killed, although many who were in his team - those who came for a while and pulled out, who saw what action in the Scouting Legion was like and had decided it wasn’t for them - they said, that it was almost as though Kiryu didn’t care if the Titans ate him.

They’d whisper that it was similar to others they’d heard of - that cadet, Eren, wasn’t it?  The one who only wanted to kill Titans.  Except that this Kiryu didn’t have anything else. Like that Mikasa, who was a skilled genius, but even she had something other than Titan-slaying.

Because of this, Kiryu was almost a wild card - he worked best on his own, but teamwork wasn’t unfamiliar territory for him.  Yet no one knew if one day his time would come, and death would decide, ‘that’s it, I’ll take him today’.  That one day, he’d simply not be there.

Except that then one night while they were at barracks, he was taken forcibly from his bed, and disappeared for several days.  The rest of his squad asked questions, but the captain, who seemed to be the only one in the know, wouldn’t give any answers.

Kiryu would reappear looking much like he’d been brought back from that dead state, but although he began talking to the others more, he wouldn’t explain what had happened - apart from that ‘a friend reminded him what ‘satisfaction’ was’, which left them just as confused as before.

From then on, he’d occasionally vanish while they were inside the walls.  He’d always be back in time, though, for meals, for lights out, for briefings.

He couldn’t keep his new lease of life a secret forever, though, and soon they discovered him writing a letter - entitled to two people, ‘Nico’, and ‘West’.

When asked, he said that he was helping to provide for them, ever since one of the Black Titans had eaten their father, some years after one of the ‘normal’ ones had done the same to their mother after the felling of the Wall Maria.

And then they’d remember who he was, and how he’d come to them, and they would look away, understanding now the reason behind the tears that stained his cheeks when he woke up, and the splotches of wet ink on the paper.

...

AN: Saying right here before anyone says anything about it - they Dark Signers/Earthbound called 'Black Titans' because... they're black.  Seriously, go look at any Earthbound Immortal card, and _that is what they look like in the AU._


	2. The Writing on the Walls

It started with the writing on the walls.

Writing that was in red, as though someone had found a large supply of paint and then some oversized brushes, and illegally appropriated 3D Maneuver gear - because the Military had checked out all of the soldiers, and none of them had used their gear outside of when they’d been ordered to.

_WE ARE WAITING FOR YOU,_ the writing said.

And when they sent people up to clean it off, they realised that it wasn’t written in paint, but in blood.

Someone… some sick, crazy person, had gone up on the walls, risked retribution from the people, the Military Police, and the Wall Cult.  And more than that - they’d gotten away with it.

Because even weeks later, no one had been able to figure out who had done it, or even how.

They’d even tried to figure out who it was from the way the words were put together, the fine details - if they could be called that - of the writing itself.

No one had had any luck.

And now…  five years after the Colossal had breached the Wall Maria… mere _months_ after it had reappeared at the Wall Rose…

_WE ARE DONE WAITING_ _,_ the writing had said the night before, still there the next day despite their best efforts to clean it off.

'Done waiting' for what, most wondered.  Who were the ones waiting, as they were definitely more than one person, and who were they waiting for?

Were they all going to die because of one person, who hadn’t owned up, who hadn’t given themself up like a lamb to the slaughter?  If it was so, then most of the populace wished that they had, not caring what kind of person it was as long as they did their duty for the good of mankind.

Yuusei had heard the news, and seen the defacement for himself, both of them, and Crow with him, both of them being in the Cadets at the time.

Rua and Ruka, from the inner Wall Shina, heard whispers on the streets that there was some trouble in the wall Rose, but nothing more, enough to worry over but not enough to have any sort of real understanding.

Aki, already graduated and serving in a special branch of the Garrison with the roses on the back of her jacket, looked out of her window, narrowed her eyes, and thought little of it.  Humanity would do as humanity did, no matter the goal they attempted to unite against.  The world was as cruel as it was beautiful, and just as many who deserved to die as those who did not, would.  No one was innocent.

Far off, in the main castles of Shina, Jack overheard Commander Dot Pixis relaying the information to Rex Godwin, and more or less ignored it - fighting back the odd, heady feeling that came with knowing what had happened the first time any of the walls had been breached.

Death.  Chaos.  Destruction.

He’d been there, and he’d been taken from it.  That life was no longer his, regardless that he wore a soldier’s uniform - he also wore the emblem of the unicorn on his back, the flag of those serving in the Military Police, closest to the king.

No longer would he need to face titans.  No longer would he need to feel that core-shaking _fear_.  Jack Atlas, he told himself over and over and over again, felt no fear.  He put on displays to the upper-class citizens, showed them just how the 3D maneuver gear worked, and how good the soldiers looked when they used it.

Then, the night after the writing appeared on the wall for the second time, the Earth trembled.

A giant - a Titan, one of enormous size -  stood inside of the Wall Rose.

It didn’t look much like any other Titan that anyone had ever seen, jet-black and covered in blue markings.  Yet hundreds of residents had disappeared from the area just before it had made its arrival known, and many more would continue to die as they discovered that while it might seem to have no mouth…

As they screamed and ran while the Garrisons were still deploying, they would find out that they were entirely wrong, with first a slit appearing from one side to the other of its face, and then teeth, rows and rows of teeth.

The inhuman Black Titans had begun their rampage.

And as soon as it began, it disappeared, leaving behind no trace.  No trace other than the death, the destruction, the many piled bodies that would need to be burnt, and Fudo Yuusei lying in hospital, barely alive.

And the next morning, more writing would appear on the walls, causing despair untold.

_COME.  SATISFY ME WITH YOUR DESPAIR IN THIS HELL.  
_

...

AN: Kiryu (yes that is him doing that) you should really put your artistic abilities to better use in other ways.


	3. Dreamcatcher

No one had seen her die, no one had seen her transform, and no one aside from those directly involved, knew that it had been her at all.

Carly knew, though. 

She knew that she’d woken up in a strange place, feeling strange and not knowing how she’d come to be there, surrounded by others in what seemed to be a similar situation.

Someone around her age with blue-white hair had looked as pale as a ghost, while a woman she was _sure_ she should recognise - the name had been on the tip of her tongue - was throwing up some distance away.  A bigger man had looked like he was about ready to do the same thing.

Carly had remembered later that the woman’s name was Misty, but only because later, she was able to match the face to that of one of the nobles she’d so respected, and it was hardly surprising she hadn’t recognised the woman at first, with how things had been.

Slowly, things had begun to return to her - the Fortune Contest, Jack, the investigation, the Arcadia movement in the Garrison, and that man, Divine…

But after that, things had remained blurred.  Nothing she tried would improve her recollections of how she’d spent that time.

It left her feeling restless and uneasy, not knowing what she’d done.  Not just because she was a reporter, but because of what had happened to so many of the others.

Kiryu had gone on trial.  They’d known, or found out somehow, that it was him who’d been behind the human-shaped Black Titan, the first one that’d appeared.  He’d escaped with his life, but at what many saw as a cost - he’d been taken into the Survey Corps. 

Who even knew if he’d come back from his first trip outside the Wall Rose alive?  Most who went on expeditions didn’t return.

Misty had been stripped of most of her influence, and sent to live outside of the Wall Shina, in the Wall Rose, close to the Garrisons for the time being, regardless that, like Kiryu, she’d shown no sign that she’d ever be able to use ‘that’ form again.

The last one, she wasn’t sure what had happened to him.  Manual labour, maybe, or sent back to the mountains where they figured that if he was still a danger, he’d do less damage than in the cities.

All of the others had been put on trial somehow.  All of them.  For being the ‘pilots’ behind those ‘Black Titans’ - the very things she’d been trying to investigate, along with those ‘Signer’ people.

But if she’d been found _with_ them, then what did that mean for _her_?

The first time she asked herself that question, that night she had bad dreams.  She would wake up with screams echoing around the room, her throat raw, knowing that from that, she was the only who could have made the noises, and wondering why she was crying.

She was still unable to remember anything from that time, and more and more she grew less willing to. 

Because now, every night came the ‘dreams’.  Things that she became increasingly suspicious of, wondered whether they even _were_ dreams.  And each night, each morning, she would wake up shaking in fear.

That all started to change when ‘he’ came back into her life, though.

'He' being Jack Atlas, of course.

He’d been the one who’d covered for her when she was still confused, telling the Military Police (the rest of them, that is) that she’d simply been ‘in the area’, that she didn’t have anything to do with it.  He’d made sure she was all right, but then he’d had to go and report to his superiors, and she hadn’t seen him since.

She’d often wished he’d been able to.  She hadn’t been too sure of what she thought of him, being more of a performance artist than anything before the whole fiasco with that ‘contest’, a thing that Rex Godwin had thought up to pit military against military in a sort of friendly competition… right after titans had been seen to attack a town on the outskirts of the Wall Rose.  Yet Jack also been the one who’d somehow transformed into a large creature, a lizard with wings, and he’d _attacked_ those same titans, along with those others…

He found her somehow when she was investigating for another article.  Those in Wall Shina still had to have their daily papers, and she was a reporter, bad nights or no. 

Somehow, he’d noticed that she was tired, that she hadn’t slept well, or enough, but she didn’t let on the reason.

It wasn’t any of his business, right?  And… aside from that, she didn’t want to worry him.

He came back again, though.  And again.  If it weren’t for the fact that the Military Police were thought to be so corrupt - and they still were, even if she didn’t _dare_ write anything about it, because she _knew_ she’d be found kicked out of Shina in no time flat, or merely ridiculed - then she would have found it annoying, because no one would give her a straight story with a member of the _Military Police_ hanging around.

But with their reputation, they didn’t seem too perturbed.  Even if the fact grated on Jack’s temper.

It wasn’t long before he followed her back home one day when he wasn’t on duty, and they somehow found themselves talking long enough into the late evening that she found herself drowsing, yawning, eyes drooping…

She’d awoken to his eyes, worried, his hands, on her shoulders.

It all spilled.  The dreams, and the fact that she couldn’t ever remember them.  The terror when she woke up.  Without knowing, she found herself in tears, and she didn’t care, for once she didn’t _care_ , because he was here, and he was holding her, and it was all right, him worrying.

He spent the rest of the night there, sat in a chair beside her bed, and that was the first good night of sleep she’d had since the dreams had started.

He came over more frequently, after that, and although the idea of his losing sleep worried her, it was easily remedied when she found him lying there on the other side of the bed, fast asleep, one morning.

She smiled lazily, and rolled back over.

...

AN: Carly's point of view!  And here we have hinted events not talked about before, and other plot points.  For those curious - no, they aren't 'sleeping together'.  It's just sleep.  Although given that they're in a relationship by this point... who knows.  At a future point, probably.  The rest of his squad are probably talking behind his back, either way.

And given what Carly's been through?  Would _you_ deny her the ability to forget?

Although really, part of why having Jack around calms her down is because _he was the one who brought her down and she subconsciously knows that he could do so again if she became a danger again._

The title, as is likely clear by now, refers to Jack himself, in a way.


End file.
